


That time it got awkward

by J_Bell



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cute, Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 11:10:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5161583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Bell/pseuds/J_Bell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone has written a revenge poem to expose the Inquisitor's relationship, and Varric swears it wasn't him. For the DA Kink Meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That time it got awkward

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/13275.html?thread=50549723#t50549723

Evelyn’s first clue that something serious is up is Leliana waiting for her at the draw bridge. Her spymaster is biting her lower lip and her brow is furrowed, as if she isn’t sure whether she should be stifling laughter or acting thoroughly serious.  
  
“Inquisitor,” Leliana begins ceremoniously. “I have an urgent matter to bring to your attention.”  
  
As Blackwall, Vivienne and Dorian walk past them, Evelyn lifts an eyebrow. “What’s so urgent you have to tell me before I’m in the fortress proper?”  
  
“It is a matter that requires discretion, your Worship, and…” Definitely biting back a smile. “It is also a personal matter. I believe it would be best if you came with me.”  
  
Evelyn sighs. She’d been hoping for a warm bath, maybe a foot rub if she could persuade Cullen to join her, but, as always, it would have to wait. “Would you at least tell me what this personal matter is?”  
  
And the smile breaks through. “Varric has been taken into custody. By Cassandra. Commander Cullen is considering having him hanged.”  
  
Evelyn rolls her eyes. “Ah,  _children_. Why is Cassandra trying to kill Varric again? I thought we were through with the whole Champion drama.”  
  
“As I said, Inquisitor.” A shy, suggestive smile. An actual  _wink_. “It is a personal matter.”  
  
Evelyn’s puzzlement is not assuaged by following Leliana to the dungeon. The redhead gives her no further information and leaves her at the door, leaving with a barely concealed giggle. Going down the long flight of stairs, she arrives at a most peculiar scene.  
  
Varric sits miserably in one of the cells while Cassandra, right in front of him, posture erect and seething righteous fury, glares daggers at him as if her eyes were enough to kill him. Cullen sits at a desk in the corner, quite incongruously, blushing.  
  
“Inquisitor,” he says getting to his feet awkwardly. Uh-oh, if Cullen is “Inquisitor”ing her, it must be serious; yet, he refuses to look her in the eyes. Blushing. Hm. “Seeker Cassandra has apprehended Varric under very serious charges.”  
  
Evelyn cannot contain the smile tugging at her lips. This is all too ridiculous to be true. “Really? What has he done this time? Killed off your favourite character?”  
  
Cassandra’s dagger-throwing glare turns to her. “If only it were that simple. Varric’s offence undermines the Inquisition itself. It shames us and you quite personally.”  
  
Cullen shifts on his feet. “And the Inquisition’s forces. And the Templars, what’s left of them, and the Chantry… and  _me_.”  
  
Evelyn raises an eyebrow at them. “My,” she sighs. “This  _does_  sound serious. Varric,  _what_  have you done?”  
  
“Nothing!” the dwarf exclaims exasperated. “I’ve told them a bazillion times it wasn’t me! I’m a damn fine writer; I’d never pen such monstrosity!”  
  
“Pen?” Evelyn looks from Cassandra to Cullen. “Monstrosity?”  
  
Cullen turns away –  _blushing_  – and Cassandra – righteous fury and likewise blushing – hands her a pamphlet, no longer than twenty pages, with the words  _The Templar’s Pilgrimage – by Varrik Tethras, author of ‘Swords and Shields’_.  
  
Evelyn leafs through it amused. “And this is…?”  
  
“A poem,” Cassandra answers, and Evelyn notices she’s back to glaring daggers at Varric and avoiding looking back at the Inquisitor. “It tells very flourishly of a Templar’s nightly visits to the Inquisitor’s chambers. It is a vile, defamatory work of a most depraved mind. It is unworthy even of  _you_ , Varric.”  
  
“You actually think I’d compare the Inquisitor’s skin to Paragon’s luster?” he asks spitting to a corner. “Or Curly’s hair to gold filigree?”  
  
Evelyn snorts. “Gold filigree?”  
  
Cullen’s face falls into his hands. “Inquisitor…”  
  
“What?” she laughs. “It _is_ rather funny. And inaccurate.” She stops at a page. “Oh. Not the hair on your head.  _Oh_.”  
  
And, to everyone’s increasing discomfort,  _Evelyn_  blushes.

Varric scratches his head. “No, let me tell you how I would tell this story: Curly’s metaphors would be all about lions, ‘cause, you know, _mane_ ; now, our Inquisitorialness, I’d exalt her overwhelming mercy and absurd lack of luck. Hm, maybe I could paint Curly as the light at the end of her day?” At Cassandra’s glare, he amends “And leave it at that! I have  _never_  written  _that_  kinda stuff about my friends!”  
  
“Do not lie,” Cassandra reprimands. “I have both read and heard your  _Tale of the Champion_. You held back no details about Hawke’s personal life.”  
  
“I distinctly remember  _not_  writing in  _that_ ” he gestures to the pamphlet in the crimsoning Inquisitor’s hands “level of detail. Now, if you’re referring to  _Isabela’s_  works…”  
  
Evelyn has closed the pamphlet with glowing cheeks. She stares at the cover while Cassandra again and again threatens Varric’s life. At last, she asks. “Varric? How do you spell your name?”  
  
Three puzzled stares upon her. The dwarf slowly answers. “V-A-R-R-I-C. Why?”  
  
“Because it states here that the author is ‘Varrik’ with a ‘K’ at the end,” she smiles. “You’re many things, Lord Tethras, but none of them is bad at spelling,  _particularly_  your own name.” Evelyn flashes Cassandra her sweetest smile. “You can let him go, Cassandra. And buy him a drink as an apology. Also, please summon Leliana for me.”  
  
Cassandra’s objections die in her throat at the disarming, awful sweetness of the command. She reluctantly opens the cell and follows Varric out.  
  
“I bet I can outdrink you, Seeker.”  
  
“I have no doubt, dwarf.”  
  
“ _I know_ ,” he grins. “And you’re paying! C’mon!”  
  
Alone at last, Evelyn places the offending pamphlet at the furthest corner of the desk and leans on the other end, closest to Cullen. “So,” she begins with impatient tiny slaps to her knees. “Everybody knows, then.”  
  
“We’ve been so careful,” he says tiredly, elbows resting on the desk and leaning forward tiredly, then looks up at her with a small smile. “And I’ve missed you. Before I forget, welcome back to Skyhold.”  
  
Pleased, she leans in for a kiss. “Two weeks away. Feels like a lifetime.”  
  
And because she’s missed him too, she goes from leaning on the desk to sitting on his lap and burying her face on the mane of his armour with a purr. “You smell nice,” she tells him.  
  
She feels his chest rumble with contained laughter. “I’d return the compliment, Inquisitor, but I believe you haven’t properly bathed in two weeks, am I correct?”  
  
Evelyn swats at him playfully. “I’ll have you know I spent  _days_  wading through rivers. Very  _clean_  rivers, too. Once stood under a waterfall for a whole hour. We only ran out of soap yesterday.”  
  
He strokes her hair fondly. “My point exactly.”  
  
She pulls back to wink at him. “Join me for a proper bath later? I may need someone to rub my back.”  
  
“Sounds like a task for the Commander of the Inquisition’s Forces, if you ask me,” he says with a smile before kissing her.  
  
And it is a good thing Leliana comes in very noisily and slowly – they even have time to comb each other’s hair into a semblance of normalcy – and are both standing up and a respectable distance apart by the time she is in front of them.  
  
“Inquisitor, Commander,” she says, formally bowing. The tiny smile gives her away, though. “Cassandra said you wanted to see me.”  
  
“Yes,” Evelyn replies in her best Inquisitor voice, indicating  _The Templar’s Pilgrimage_  with a glare. “I assume you know what this is.”  
  
Leliana, exerting a lot more self-control than everyone in Skyhold put together, merely nods. “I do, my Lady. I told Cassandra I would investigate it, but she seemed certain she already knew who was to blame.”  
  
“Search every nook and cranny of this fortress and collect every copy you can find. I want them all burned.”  
  
“Certainly, your Worship. Anything else?”  
  
“Find out who wrote this absurdity.”  
  
“Yes, my Lady.”  
  
And with another bow – and not even a tug at the corners of her lips! – she leaves. Evelyn turns to Cullen with a smile and offers him a hand. “So… about that bath…”  
  
He grins back. “As the Inquisitor commands.”  
  
  
\---

  
  
“This is  _unbearable_ ,” Evie says looking up from the tiny book. “It’s all in terribly-written iambic pentameter, and  _nothing else_! It’s frankly giving me a headache.”  
  
Beside her on the bed, Cullen lifts an eyebrow. “You’re actually reading it?”  
  
She lifts one back. “Haven’t  _you_  read it?”  
  
He looks to the ceiling with a sigh and quotes a particularly dirty bit involving his tongue and the awash of feelings and reactions it exacts from her. She blushes a smile.  
  
“She doth at that,” she agrees, “although I agree with Varric. Your metaphors should be lion-y. All about… bravery… prowess… strength…  _wild…_  ” a kiss to his chest when she runs out of words.  
  
Cullen laughs. “I’m also not sure about all the religious imagery.”  
  
Evie looks up from her beautiful mosaic of kisses. “Oh?” she grins like a cat and stretches up beside him. “I’ll admit this much to our evil writer, with you it’s the only time and place I feel truly worshipped.”  
  
And there’s the look in his eyes again – which she sees for barely a second before he’s pulled her on top of him and is kissing the daylights out of her – the look of truest devotion that makes her melt for him. It is only when she tries to turn them over and he whispers that he likes her on top that it hits her.  
  
“Sera.”  
  
He blinks a few times, confused. “No, Evie. Cullen, remember?”  
  
Sitting up, she makes a dismissive gesture. “No. Sera. I once asked her opinion of my advisors and she said you had lots of men under you, that you needed a woman over you. Positions. It’s in the poem too!”  
  
Cullen seems torn on the subject of sitting up. “…It’s a lead. Should we tell Leliana?”  
  
Evie thinks for a bit. A very short bit. “Nah,” she says resuming their previous positions. “She’s clever, she’ll figure it out.”  
  
  


\---  
  
  
“…and regarding the matter you asked me to look into, Inquisitor,” Leliana says during the war room meeting the following morning. “I have located and destroyed all seven manuscript copies my agents have found, and they were very thorough in their search. It seems there was only ever one printed.”  
  
Josephine candidly checks her notes. “Oh, yes, the indiscreet matter,” which has Cullen’s ears, despite his profound professionalism, pinking. “I trust the culprit has been executed already?”  
  
“We have the two of them in custody, but one swears she only ever provided input, while the other insists she never wrote down a single word composed.”  
  
“Let me guess,” Cullen says tiredly. “Sera is one of them?”  
  
“The input provider,” Evelyn surmises. “And the composer?”  
  
“Maryden,” Leliana says, condescending to a disgusted sneer. “For one with such a pretty voice one would expect better taste.”  
  
“And judgment,” Josephine adds. “Whatever could have possessed her to strike at the Inquisitor so?”  
  
“We had her silly request for retribution against a fellow bard denied,” Cullen says looking at some old reports. “Perhaps this was her idea of payback?”  
  
The Inquisitor sighs. “Let me talk to her. In the dungeon, nothing public. And keep her and Sera very far from each other, if possible out of earshot. That will be all for now.”  
  
Her three advisors – Maker bless them – bow respectfully as she exits purposefully. Without Cullen blushing to death beside her or Leliana quietly laughing herself silly, there is actually a small chance she might be able to solve this.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Barely an hour later, the Inquisitor is in his office wearing a pleased-with-herself smile.  
  
“I think I’ve put the fear of the Maker into Maryden,” she chuckles. “Or the fear of me, anyway.”  
  
Cullen can’t help a chuckle either. “What did you do?”  
  
“Oh, you know,” she shrugs. “I held the Anchor in front of her and let it spark a bit, saying she’d bring the Maker’s wrath upon herself and doom upon all the world for spreading poisonous words against the Herald of his Bride.”  
  
Despite the bit of blasphemy, he chuckles as well. “And what about Sera?”  
  
“She’s an innocent by-stander, for all I could gather,” she says leaning on his desk. “Apparently all she’s guilty of is drinking too much and bragging she could show me a much better time than ‘Commander Cully-Wully’.” And there’s the faint blush to his ears. Adorable. Evelyn gives him a smack on the cheek. “Problem solved.”  
  
“And the printer?”  
  
“There’s only the one is Skyhold, and we’ve put it under the quartermaster’s care from now on. Ought to stop any other disagreeable books popping up.”  
  
Cullen smiles at her. “I’m glad this has been resolved without further embarrassment, Inquisitor.”  
  
She grins as she rests her forehead against his. “So am I, Commander.”

 

 

 


End file.
